I am a hopeful home inspector well along in the education, licensing, and business planning process but not launching yet. As I am trying to measure my local markets, I am wondering: Of new homes sold, what percentage get inspections from a private inspector (like ourselves, vs the municipal building inspectors [code inspections] required throughout the building process)?
I know that new home inspections could be a source of revenue, but am wondering how many new homes actually elect to get an inspection (I would assume that there’s a decent percentage that elect to go without one)?
I don’t know the percentage of people purchasing new homes that get an inspection but I do quite a few new construction inspections each year, did 2 this week alone, but then again I can go a couple of months without one.
I quit trying to figure this market out a long time ago.
Very little I think. However before becoming an inspector I was a realtor, I sold a new home to a client ( he is an inspector with me now) , decided an inspection was not necessary. Two years later he sold the home, they got an inspection, the home was found to have no insulation above the living room, so definitely the contractor and municipal inspectors don’t do their jobs
Hard to pin down with any accuracy how many people have new home phase or just final inspections. The number is relatively much smaller than those that do not. Unfortunately buyers are fed so much crap about other inspections being done, it’s a new home and it shouldn’t have problems, etc., etc., that many choose not to.
To answer the question in your title you can expect to get as many new home inspections as you work to get. There is no lottery, division of the spoils, etc., etc., and you will need to work at it to get it.
Such a good point. Also, once in a new subdivision word will get around if you do a good job. Especially on the 11 month inspections. It is not unusual to perform multiple inspections in one neighborhood.
These 11 month inspections may be worth some direct mail marketing, however I have not ventured into this form of marketing. Maybe other inspectors have some feedback.
And this is what we are finding after everything has been finished. (sheetrock, interior finished, etc.) Imagine what was missed before everything was covered up!
I found three second-floor lofts last year in the same neighborhood with no insulation in the attic. There was not a required scuttle access for the attic so it never got insulated. Here it’s required if the ceiling is made of a combustible material and has at least 30 ft.² area with a 30 inch clearance from ceiling to roof.
New construction inspections is a very strong part of my business.
Depending on your area and your market, this could be a very lucrative part of your business. New construction and warranty work is about 95% of my business.
New construction inspections are barely 3% of my business. Most folks (and their agents) don’t think new construction needs an inspection. I do far more 11-month inspections and every time, I find problems.
BTW, I always strongly recommend a sewer scope on new homes. In my 24 years, we’ve found 3 taps that were never done, broken lines and major bellies that were not flushing the solids through.
This is very true. Most of my 11th Month Warranty Inspections last year were a result of “word of mouth”, and many were in the same subdivision. On one particular street with only 10 homes, I did 6 of them. Two were done buy another HI that actually lived on that same street. So “word of mouth” is very powerful in this industry as it is in so many others.
Getting to know how a specific builder does things really helps speed things up as well, you will learn where to find typical issues. Learning what each builder will or will not cover can also help build that relationship with the client. I often tell clients about items I find that I know won’t be covered even though I put it in the report, and they are usually very grateful that I did that research for them. If they submit a warranty claim to the builder, knowing that the odds of getting it fixed are slim to none ahead of time, eases their frustration when the builder rejects the claim.
I came across a similar situation a few times. All of the houses were by the same builder and same subdivision. After my inspections, the builder’s head superintendent called me to thank me for finding this. Apparently he started checking other finished homes in the area and found several more that were the same way himself, and instituted a new policy to check for this in every new home before drywall went up to save future headaches…
They had the rate of those forgoing inspections (not sure if that is phase or 11 month, but I’d maybe lean towards an assumption of mostly 11 month inspections) to be about 14%. Meaning about 86% or so of new builds do get a private inspection of some nature. That seemed higher than I might have imagined at first intuition given my assumption that many buyers of new homes might assume, “The home is new, what could be so badly wrong?”
But, along with discovering that helpful NAR piece, I also discovered that it appears fairly unanimous from realtors and banks that they strongly encourage and recommend inspections on new homes, even though they are new, given some of the issues like you all have noted presenting themselves. So, if most banks/realtors are still recommending inspections (again, I assume these are mostly meaning 11 month inspections) then I guess a higher rate (~86%) of new homes being inspected than I may have originally assumed is plausible.
So, I guess from someone already doing a decent volume of annual inspections, I’d be curious if anyone has been keeping record of each inspection (new vs existing home) and went back to actually measure the percentage of their annual work that was coming from existing home sales and new home sales?
